Patty Hearst is an unlikely muse. And while it may seem a difficult task to top the larger-than-life aura of her grandfather, publishing icon William Randolph Hearst, Patty makes quite a compelling case.
Hearst makes a two-paragraph appearance in Just Kids, but her 1974 kidnapping, bank robbery, and embrace of the Symbionese Liberation Army – the group responsible for her kidnapping – served to inspire Patti’s first single, a cover of Jimi Hendrix’s “Hey Joe” with lyrics altered by Smith’s impressions of the Hearst case.
… and Patty Hearst
You’re standing there in front of the Symbionese
Liberation army flag with your legs spread…
And now that you’re on the run what goes on in your mind
Your sisters they sit by the window
You know your mama doesn’t sit and cry and your daddy…
Patty, you know what your daddy said
Patty, he said, he said, he said
Well, sixty days ago she was such a lovely child
Now here she is with a gun in her hand…
There is very little that connects Patti Smith and filmmaker John Waters – that they both appeared in a documentary celebrating the legacy of their mutual friend William S. Burroughs seems to be the sole link – save their joint muse, Patty Hearst.
Enthralled, as Smith was, by the spectacular crime and class circumstances surrounding the case, Waters devotedly attended every day of Hearst’s 1976 trial, despite his disappointment in the defendant’s fashion choices: “… always a letdown, looking so plain in her sensible shoes and private-school outfits… No wonder no one ever recognized her on her cross-country jaunts.”
Forgiving her for her fashion crimes, Waters persuaded Hearst to appear in a small role in his 1990 film Cry-Baby, and cast her in each of his movies since. In a tongue-in-cheek nod to her notoriety, Hearst played a jury member whose sensible (but out-of-season) white shoes enrage Kathleen Turner’s titular character in Serial Mom.
http://youtu.be/capxvg_b7I8
Despite – or because of – the wildly divergent artistic paths of Smith and Waters, I am fascinated (and more than a little amused) at the inspiration of Patty Hearst and its consequences. Each artist uses a different medium to explore the notoriety-soaked and utterly surreal stakes of her life and crimes with results reveling in the exploitation of themes neatly summarized within Smith’s lyrics:
But daddy, daddy, you’ll never know just what I was feelin’
But I’m sorry, I am no little pretty little rich girl
I am nobody’s million dollar baby, I am nobody’s patsy anymore
I’m nobody’s million dollar baby, I’m nobody’s patsy anymore
And I feel so free
The surreal – yet rewarding – paths continue for the artists and their muse: nobody’s patsy, or even Patty, Patricia Campbell Hearst Shaw was granted a full pardon by President Bill Clinton on his last day in office, Jan. 20, 2001; John Waters remains a successful director, author, and enthusiastic connoisseur of bad taste; and, of course, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee Patti Smith will be awarded the Hepburn medal on Feb. 7 at Bryn Mawr College. The surreal life ain’t so bad.